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More voices on crack scandal

Sat., Nov. 9, 2013

Have I stepped through the looking glass? I am woman who was born in, and lives in Toronto. When I came home from work the other and turned on the news, I felt as if I was in an alternate universe, and I can assure you, it’s not from smoking crack cocaine. The Mayor Rob Ford issue is beyond anything I thought I’d ever see. It is sad to see the day when the representative of our city is a liar, a lawbreaker, a bully, and a drug user (and that’s what we know to date).

I am a teacher of children in Grade 2, and despite our school’s best efforts, their role model is everything we are earnestly working against. We are teaching character traits: be honest (he’s a liar); take responsibility for your actions (not only when you are absolutely cornered, and then have to make a mock apology); and don’t blame someone else for your actions (his brother is now diverting the blame and the issue onto the chief of police, who is doing his job with dignity). By the way, is nepotism okay?

We say to our kids and students, ‘don’t use drugs’. Well, what a great role model Ford’s been for our kids. He was, on a personal level to me, and embarrassment to our city long before these current issues even arose. What job can you keep, when you show up intoxicated, or break the law? I know I certainly couldn’t do that on my job. Isn’t being Mayor of the city one of the most important and influential jobs? I have no issue with his personal problems, but keep them personal. How can this person continue to operate in this public capacity?

Cheryl Purves, Toronto

It would help the cause if you would stop using the term “Ford nation.” It conveys the notion of a monolithic unit out there somewhere, and all who support this embarrassment constitute its citizens. It makes those misguided voters feel they are part of an exclusive club.

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Raymond Peringer, Toronto

Honesty, trustworthiness, integrity and forthrightness — have these words lost meaning in public service? When will the hovering dark cloud of self-serving behaviour go away that is overshadowing the image of Toronto as being one of North America’s premier cities?

Is it really because it no longer matters what people and outsiders think, as it has been advanced by some analysts. Or is it because what is being played out is like some improvised movie script that has had no precedent in municipal politics, and that it must run its course like some run-away freight train.

It is almost an outworn cliché to say that those in high places of power and prestige must be held to a higher standard. Even the private sector has a higher bar. What really does it take to re-infuse meaning into those qualities and virtues of reliable public stewardship that are really the flagship of good governance for a cities commerce and well-being?

Or is it that given the restrictions of infrastructures to rectify, that the pangs of individual conscience will need to yield to the higher well-being and that those involved will go away quietly into the night.

Claude McDonald, Kitchener

A special thanks to Chief Bill Blair and his people for the work they have done and continue to do on the Rob Ford case. In spite of continuing interference by Doug Ford calling for his job, Chief Blair has continued on with dignity, class and professionalism, three words that are not even in Rob Ford’s dictionary. As far as Doug Ford, he is nothing more than a bully and a thug and will get his someday. Keep up the good work and thanks from the citizens of Toronto for getting to the truth.

Gary Slippoy, Toronto

All attributions of schadenfreude — pleasure derived from another’s misfortune — when directed to the situation of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford will prove neither productive or beneficial. The public decapitation and humiliation of one’s public profile of service will by no means ever atone for the gross emotive action of error in not providing full complete disclosure as to alcohol abuse and crack cocaine use resulting in multiple statements of omission.

One hopes that public civility will prevail, ensuring a fair and equitable civil societal rendering of this tragic circumstance in Mayor Ford admitting to drug and excessive alcohol abuse. What I find intriguing is that at heart, an apology depends upon a paradox. No matter how sincere, an apology cannot undo what was done, and yet in a mysterious transcendent way and according to its own self-atoning logic, this is precisely what it manages to do.

An apology is inevitably inadequate. Nevertheless, forgiveness, while not compelled by apology, may depend upon it. The real fundamental mystery of apology depends upon the social relationships it summons and strengthens. The apology is not merely words.

Crucial here is the communal nature of the process of apologizing. An apology is not a soliloquy. Rather, an apology requires communication between a wrongdoer and a victim, which in this instance are the citizens of Toronto. No apology occurs without the involvement of each party.

The apology reminds the wrongdoer of community norms because the apology admits to violating them. The apologizer assumes a position of vulnerability before not only the victims but also the larger community of societal witnesses.

Monte McMurchy, Toronto

Most western democracies have a provision in their constitutions that enables them to depose a leader who has “crossed the line.” If a leader is alleged to be involved in criminal activities, to have substance abuse and addiction problems, to exhibit bizarre and threatening behaviour toward their associates and constituents or cultivates an ongoing web of deceit and covering up of scandalous behaviour then these are usually good reasons to get rid of them.

Rob Ford is guilty of all of these infractions many times over and yet we have no legal way of making him answer for them. Were the architects of our municipal government naïve in that they assumed that anyone who would run for public office had pure and altruistic intentions? When this is all over and we have a new government in place we need to make sure someone like Rob Ford doesn’t hold our city for ransom ever again.

John Fraser, Toronto

Although your reportage on the Mayor Ford crack smoking scandal has been incisive, comprehensive and timely, there is one error that your staff keeps making. They refer to a videotape of the Ford smoking incident made by an iPhone. As wonderful as iPhones are they do not contain tape drives. They do record video files.

There are several important differences between video files and video tapes. Primarily they handle deletion in different ways. Tapes that are are erased or re-recorded on actually over write the original file so that it cannot be recovered. Files that are deleted by most computers only have the entry in the file index altered so that the space occupied by the file can now be re-used. However it is a simple matter to restore the index entry and all of the original file (providing some other file has not used the space in the mean time).

Ironically had the creators of the video file understood the difference, they could have used a utility such as CCleaner (it meets the US Department of Defense standards for file deletion) that “scrubs (overwrites many times)” the original data so that it would have been unrecoverable.

Moses Shuldiner, Toronto

Today, I was totally outraged at what I heard on the news at noon where this buffoon of a man admitted to smoking crack cocaine, and being so drunk he could not remember when it had happened.

Over the past few weeks, I have seriously considered cancelling my subscription to the Toronto Star, a paper I have read daily for 41 years since I came to Canada, and if that happened, where would I read Rosie DiManno, Daniel Dale, Jennifer Pagliaro, and the incomparable Royson James, and all the other great reporters at the Star?

Always, your reporting has been ‘spot on’ but in the case of Rob Ford, I thought maybe you had lost your way, but your were absolutely right in following this story, and I have to thank you, for being so diligent in your reporting. I will not be cancelling my subscription, as a matter of fact I am now anxiously awaiting delivery of tomorrow mornings newspaper.

But let us be real, it is now time for this ‘dog & pony” show to end, please get Rob Ford out of that office at City Hall. Are you reading this Rob Ford?

How dare those Ford brothers attack our Chief of Police?

Enough is enough, if this guy was caught in any company in Toronto behaving in such a way as he has in the past few weeks, his ass would have been out of the door, companies write letters to employees who behave badly, so accept this as one such letter to Rob Ford, and you can give a copy to his brother Doug Ford too, the pair of them should be turfed out, and that radio station should cancel them too. Enough already, Toronto deserves a better Mayor than the current disaster of a Mayor.

Audrey Frati, Toronto

Long after the media frenzy has ended, and long after Rob Ford is no longer mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford’s children will have to bear the shame and stigma of having a father who is a drunk, a doper, and a liar of the lowest order. Ford had the highest position as Mayor of one of the top six world class cities, and he blew it in ‘epic’ fashion and lied to everyone. Few people in life ever have such an opportunity. High level politicians usually have a lucrative and lasting after-life in the public sector, but who in their right mind is going to hire Rob Ford to do anything that requires sobriety, honour, reputation, honesty, or good judgement?

Really, Rob, you only tried crack once and it just ‘happened’ to be at the house of a drug dealer who was subsequently raided, and people in the photo later ended up dead in other ‘circumstances’?

In time the media and public will forget, but this ugly legacy will haunt the children for the rest of their lives. His wife should have known better and should have reigned him in, or separated from him for the sake of the children. 14 years ago when Ford was stopped for DUI and drug possession in a Florida ‘family’ vacation, are you telling me that his wife was not aware??

Perhaps the Children’s Aid Society needs to look into the long term safety and well being of the children.

In case you hadn’t noticed and don’t follow the news, but life in the 21st century, around the planet, is not going so well. Perhaps this is yet one more shocking example of the decay.

We are at one minute to midnight. When is an educated, intelligent, and just politician going to heroically step forward with a new vision for all, locally and globally?

Abhorrences tend to run in family lines. To the children : seek counselling because you are going to need it to become healthy normal adults. Sincere apologies.

Hey, it’s ‘His Worship, the Mayor of Crack’. Now can everyone now concentrate on balancing the GTA megabudget, please.

Myron Pyzyk, Mississauga

I continue to feel sorry for the embarrassing incidents Toronto’s proud, talented and hard working citizens continue to suffer because of the behaviour of Mayor Rob Ford. I live in a small rural town of 8,000 residents in South Western Ontario so I cannot imagine how humiliated many Torontonians feel. Now Mayor Rob Ford has finally admitted that he tried using crack cocaine while he was in a drunken stupor. Meanwhile his brother has turned his bullying ways towards Police Chief Blair. The police chief is understandably troubled because he is ultimately responsible for upholding the law in this large city.

Mayor Ford has committed so many transgressions that it is difficult to keep track of them during his tenure as mayor. Toronto is Canada’s largest city and needs and deserves better leadership. Mayor Ford shows little concern for the welfare of this vital Canadian metropolis. The world is looking on with dismay while this city’s leader has broken the law and showed questionable moral character. He was photographed reading while driving his vehicle. He keeps company with the shadiest characters from a variety of backgrounds, not just blacks, as intimated by Councillor Ford. He has appeared drunk at important functions and bullies or verbally abuses anyone who stands in his way. Trustworthy and eminent reporters have been constantly condemned by the Ford brothers for keeping the citizens informed. Now these reporters in The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail have been proven they reported the truth. There was indeed a video of Mayor Ford.

I am writing this letter to let Toronto’s citizens know I and many other Canadians living outside your metropolis have immense sympathy for your current municipal leadership problems. I have also never expressed my opinion in print about Mayor Ford but enough is enough.

May there be much brighter future for you and your city when a new mayor is elected. Please do not lose hope.

Diana Simpson, Hanover

The implosion of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is the ultimate manifestation of the utter failure of the City’s amalgamation with the other five municipalities and Metro Toronto on January 1, 1998. The capricious, spiteful and negative determination of then Premier Mike Harris to implement the mega-city, despite an overwhelming opposition, has vapourized political accountability. Moreover, the dysfunctional mess at City Hall is painful evidence of an impossible combination of a too large and powerful bureaucratic administration with an over wrought and unfocussed political oversight. There has been little, if any, innovative and responsible policy to guide and nurture Toronto since amalgamation.

My two terms as a Councillor in the old City of Toronto were the high points of my life. The political structure of the old City allowed me to help govern an urban entity that had evolved over many decades to become what the late Peter Ustinov referred to as “New York run by the Swiss”. And he didn’t mean Etobicoke, Scarborough or North York. Cautious and meticulous review of municipal structure by the Provincial Government is now viewed with nostalgia for it facilitated the largely successful pairing of regional and local municipal governance. Of course there were many problems as well as policies that are now suspect. But, compared to what Toronto has endured for the past fifteen years, it was a City Hall with a responsible Council managing the best municipal administration in North America.

I was proud to be part of a city that took its Official Plan seriously. The current chaotic and rampant over-development would never had been allowed. Infrastructure had to bear a keen relationship to land use. Zoning by-laws, carefully crafted and rigidly enforced, gave us a city that worked primarily for those who live here, as it should be. Important political decisions were made locally, as they should be. City governance was small enough to be legible and approachable. Public participation was facilitated and meaningful; citizen input was genuinely sought and evaluated. I experienced this first hand.

Despite the population growth and the ever more building permits, I sense that Toronto is on the verge of a massive seizure. It can no longer sustain, let alone guide, the uncontrolled land use and transportation intensification with its political dysfunctionality. This has come to a head with Mayor Ford.

Howard J. Levine, Toronto

Mayor Ford knows or believes that he has enough electoral support to win the next election. Most Toronto politicians fear that Ford is right.That is why so many of them and their spokespeople explain not how to get rid of the Mayor but why we cannot get rid of him.The huge support for Ford that so many people fear comes from those who believe the myths that our problems stem from government waste, high taxation, Unions,too much concern for the poor, gays and new immigrants; and their resentment for those they believe to be elitist.

If Councillors wanted to get rid of Ford, they would take a vote(either unanimously or with a substantial majority) of no confidence in him, and advise him unambiguously that they cannot and will not work with him.

It is never impossible in a democracy to dump a leader.Prime Ministers, Premiers,even Presidents have had to go when they have lost the confidence of a substantial majority of legislators.It is not Law.It is called Democratic Politics.

Romain Pitt, toronto

Ford’s apology only covers his escapades that were a result of his drinking. I am more concerned about the possible racial and homophobic slurs that may be in the video. Toronto is vibrant and diverse city. Should we have a mayor who does not embrace this diversity? As Chief Magistrate he has a responsiblity to uphold the laws and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this country. Only a hypocrite can claim to represent the citizens of this city while insulting very significant and vibrant segments of it.

Addiction is a medical condition that can be treated and the antics resulting from the addiction can be modified. When is the Mayor going to change his belief system? It is time that we demand that Ford address his racist and homophobic beliefs. If he cannot represent all the citizens of the city, he should resign. It takes alot more than a balanced budget and subways to make and maintain a great city.

Brian Crowle, Toronto

Rob Ford’s non-descriptive apology has compelled me to write this because it seems that no-one is getting (or communicating) the “big” picture.

First, at the Charbonneau commission in Quebec, a former RCMP chief superintendent, Ben Soave, stated that organized crime has infiltrated Ontario’s economy at least as much as it has in Quebec.

Second, Mayor Rob Ford appears in a video, apparently consuming illegal narcotics via a crack pipe. In that video are several people with criminal associations which have led to the police investigation, Project Traveller. Some of the people in the police investigation were high school friends of Rob Ford. Doug Ford and several members of the Ford family have been tied to selling hashish and to having ties to drug traffickers in the 80’s. It has been reported in the media that some people have been “scared” to take on the Ford’s because they are very “powerful”. The key word is “scared”. Rob Ford has written controversial reference letters on city letter head for people with criminal histories, some of whom it appears that Mr. Ford did not seem to actually know well.

The key issue is NOT Mr. Ford’s drunkenness in public as Mr. Ford seemed to suggest in Sunday’s broadcast on CFRB (more on that below). It is Mr. Ford’s long-term, on-going relationships with individuals who have criminal histories and who appear to be involved with organized crime.

Third, Mr. Ford in his broadcast claimed that he shouldn’t drink in public; but will drink at home. This should be worrying for Mrs. Ford. How many times have the police been called to the Ford residence re. domestic disturbances in the past? How many times have there been allegations of spousal abuse?

Finally, it seems to me that one of the low points of a politician’s career is when their constituents feel the need to be apologists for their elected official’s behaviour in order to legitimize their vote for him. To the citizens of Toronto, at what point does Mr. Ford’s behaviour stop being tolerable? When he murders his wife in a drunken rage? Does it really need to be that extreme? Please note in your judgments that he is the mayor of the largest city in Canada with a budget approaching $1 billion. Stop lowering your standards.

Peter Rex, Toronto

Give Ford what he wants, Nov. 4

Rosie DiManno nailed it; Mayor Rob Ford is exhausting.

And in the wake of this latest (but, I suspect, far from last) bout of half-excuses and palavering distractions from the mayor, his enablers and his through-the-looking-glass supporters, I’ve decided to hold off on any further reading on the topic. This is not to suggest that you should halt your excellent and essential work covering this slow-mo train wreck of a story; It’s just that my lifelong appreciation of the absurd, apparently, has its limits.

Rest assured though that I intend to express my opinion clearly when and where it matters next October. I trust I won’t be alone.

Michael Lennick, Toronto

Rob Ford believes that the grand, heroic effort he made to spit out his Gigantic Cocaine Apology — worthy of the Jerry Springer Show — is enough for him to claim that all is now well with the world and that the S.S. Toronto can sail on in calm seas. But Captain Ford — or is it Bligh? — may find himself adrift in a storm of his own making with a mutinous crew on board.

Geoff Rytell, Toronto

I wonder how Rob Ford’s supporters are going to feel about his leadership, when their children, model themselves after him and conclude--since trying crack cocaine is OK for the mayor, then why isn’t it OK for them?

Whether he likes it or not, Mayor Ford, is in the public eye and is a role model. Almost every child and adolescent riding in the back seat of their parent’s car heard his admission. They will be watching carefully to see what if any consequences will follow.

After Bill Clinton’s activities were revealed in the Oval Office, there was a surge of oral sex amongst teens and even pre-teens, who simply repeated what Bill said - “ Oral sex is not really sex.” Every parent is going to have a tough job tonight, trying to explain to their child why they shouldn’t try crack cocaine. After all, the mayor does it! If Ford had a shred of real concern for the people, and especially the young people, of this city, he would step down now!

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